Movie review: 'Schmucks' says it all

Friday

Jul 30, 2010 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2010 at 8:46 AM

Another week, another disingenuous trifle from Hollywood celebrating the power of independent thinking. It’s called “Dinner for Schmucks,” but a more apt title would be “A Movie for Schmucks,” given how the film industry, in its infinite condescension, views its gullible customers.

Al Alexander

Another week, another disingenuous trifle from Hollywood celebrating the power of independent thinking. It’s called “Dinner for Schmucks,” but a more apt title would be “A Movie for Schmucks,” given how the film industry, in its infinite condescension, views its gullible customers.

Like Barack Obama, the suits are all too eager to tell you what you want to hear. And in this case, what they think you want infiltrating your ears is confirmation that wealthy people are insensitive jerks and commoners are rife with godliness.

The hypocrisy is laughable, which, incidentally, is the only thing funny about “Schmucks,” a woeful remake of Francis Veber’s acerbic Gallic comedy, “The Dinner Game,” about rich, corporate prigs hunting underprivileged eccentrics for sport and then bringing their bagged quarry to the dinner table for all to feast on. And by “feast,” I mean savagely ridicule.

It’s a repulsive, vitriolic premise doomed to fail if not entrusted to a filmmaker as gifted as Veber, whose comedies refute the belief that the French have terrible senses of humor. Not only are his pictures hilarious, they’re subtly moving and, most importantly, sincere in their use of irony to make a point about social injustice, no matter if the subject is homosexuality (“The Closet”), gay marriage (“La Cage Aux Folles”), infidelity (“The Valet”) or idiot savants (“The Dinner Game”).

Jay Roach, best known for his “Austin Powers” trilogy, may know comedy, but he will never be mistaken for Francis Veber. He’s more like Judd Apatow with a fraction of the talent.

Roach deals strictly in the obvious, eschewing innovation and cleverness in favor of cheap sight gags and characters that exist only in the minds of lazy screenwriters like David Guion and Michael Handelman, whose resumes include the equally insipid “The Ex.”

Together, they’ve taken Veber’s marvelous screenplay and filtered out all the humor, heart and romance, and replaced it with a profusion of slapstick and platitudes about how we should hate high-end financial advisers like Paul Rudd’s corporate climber, Tim Conrad, and embrace dorky stalkers like Steve Carell’s IRS bookkeeper Barry Speck.

When we first meet Barry, his nerdy face – and to a lesser extent, his “Dumb and Dumber” bob – are smashed firmly up against the windshield of Tim’s expensive new Porsche, having landed there after stepping blindly into the car’s path to retrieve a mouse carcass for his ever-expanding collection.

You can almost hear Roach in the background begging for laughs, but it’s just not funny. And neither is what ensues once Tim and Barry embark on a journey of co-dependency: Barry needs a friend and Tim needs a crazed eccentric to be his date for a dinner party being thrown by his easily impressed boss, Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood).

The plan is simple: Find the biggest, most entertaining idiot (that would be Barry), and win a promotion to the coveted top floor.

The twist, of course, is that Barry is the smartest, most well-adjusted and unpretentious man in the dining room. In other words, he’s exactly the sort of dude Hollywood execs would toss on his tush if he strolled within 500 yards of their Beverly Hills mansions.

But that doesn’t mean Barry can’t be regarded as a hero by the poor slobs who clean the producers’ pools, trim their hedges and drive their limos. You know, the schmucks willing to pony up $10 for “Schmucks.”

And if the suits are lucky, the serfs will barely notice that “Schmucks” is merely a less funny version of “I Love You, Man,” as an upwardly mobile exec watches helplessly as a slightly crazed derelict mucks up his romantic life.

In this scenario, the role of the shrewish girlfriend goes to the vanilla-tinged Stephanie Szotack. Thanks to Barry, she believes Tim is cheating on her with his other stalker (Lucy Punch), a nutty blonde (is there any other kind?) he had a one-night stand with long before he met Szostak’s Julie.

Are you bored yet?

Just give Carell and Rudd a few more minutes and you will be, as the usually reliable comedians pretty much phone it in with shallow portrayals of their equally shallow characters.

Carell draws the showier role, playing the perpetual dope with the bizarre hobby of designing dioramas (the only funny thing in the movie) populated with taxidermied mice dressed in tiny suits and dresses. But his lovable-loon shtick seems repetitive, coming as closely as it does on the heels of the endearing nut he voiced in the superior “Despicable Me.”

After playing that great part, no wonder he looks so bored by this bummer. Ditto Rudd, who has played the lovelorn sadsack a dozen times before. And if they’re bored, what reason do we have not to feel the same?

Al Alexander may be reached at aalexander@ledger.com.

DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS (PG-13 for sequences of crude and sexual content, some partial nudity and language.) Cast includes Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Bruce Greenwood and Stephanie Szotack. Directed by Jay Roach. 2 stars out of 4.